Apparently Billy Beane hates all of those fine qualities and only cares about trying to make his team better. What other reason could he have for including Brad Peacock in the Jed Lowrie deal, which linked it to the Dan Haren deal through Chris Carter, which linked it to basically every other trade he’s made since he became GM. (click to embiggen)

Start with 14 draft picks, make 23 trades that cycle through 47 players and you end up with 13-15 players still in the organization. My favorite part is the direct path from Mark Mulder to Dan Haren to Brett Anderson. Other teams dream of getting back an ace when they trade an ace. Billy Beane does it.